Chip oriented technologies are playing an ever increasing roll in product innovation and improvement. While chip complexity is approaching the 1 megabit milestone, products often require more capabilities than can be adequately incorporated in a single chip. Moreover, it is often preferred, particularly in the case of extensive large scale systems such as super computers, that the system not be over-integrated to avoid the possibility that an entire expensive assembly may have to be scraped because of the failure of a relatively minor part. Accordingly, it is becoming increasingly common for chip oriented technologies to be implemented as chip sets comprising a plurality of individual chips designed to be interconnected and to interact in a pre-specified manner. A typical chip set might, for example, include chips which provide a microprocessor, one or more interface chips, a permanent memory such as a read only memory (ROM), and a volatile storage such as a random access memory (RAM). While chip sets can contain as few as two or three chips, chip sets for computers typically contain several hundred or even thousands of chips. VLSI chips in a set may typically include up to 64 or more external connections and the majority of these connections are directed to interfacing with other chips.
Information processing equipment such as computers or other signal processors employ chip sets containing hundreds or thousands of chips. The cost of these systems directly relate to the cost of packaging and interconnecting the chips in a set in a desired functional relationship. Further, the operating speed of a system and the chips comprising the system play an important role in the successful implementation of new technologies. Interconnections between chips contribute to signal propagation delay and signal distortion. In addition, the packaging system must be capable of dissipating as much heat as it generates in order to maintain thermal equilibrium. Conventional packaging systems employing printed circuit boards are unable to handle the required number of chips within a volume and at a density which is readily compatible with the requirements of more advanced circuit applications. In addition, chips mounted on typical ceramic base substrates commonly operate at clock rates of less than 50 MHz. While ceramic substrates are satisfactory for low frequency chips, more advanced hybrid VLSI electronic systems often require clock rates in excess of 50 MHz. Moreover, chips disposed on an exposed substrate are susceptible to contamination.
A silicon circuit board which incorporates multiple levels of patterned conductors is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,035 issued to R. O. Carlson, H. H. Glascock, J. A. Loughran, and H. F. Webster, for a Low Loss Multilayer Silicon Circuit Board. The interconnection module of this invention bears some resemblance to the interconnecting board described in this patent.